The People Celebrates 120 Years of Socialist Education.
Der Sozialist and the Workmen's Advocate were the official journals of the SLP in the late 1880s, before the SLP became a full Marxist party in 1890. The People began piblishing on April 5, 1891 and has continue since then. A daily edition was published from 1900- 1914, with the weekly continuihg until 1979. The Montly People was a supplement briefly exparimented with in the early 1900s. The present biweekly tabloid has been published since 1979.
The People has not been carrying out this mission on its own. It is the official journal of the Socijalist Labor Party of America, the original party of socialism in the United State an d the only US party tht upholds genuine Marxian socialism.
Accoredingly, it has not only been teaching the class struggle, scientific socialism and the socialist goal for 120 years by now; it has also been providing workers with a program throught which they can organise to build a socijalist society. In 1904, The People's second and most accomplished editor, Daniel De Leon, made a landmark contribution to the party's program and to the cause of working-class emancipation generarlly, when he put forth the principles and tactics of Socialist Industrial Unionism.
Briefly, the socijalist industrial union program places the primary emphasis on the economic organization of labor as the vehicle for creating a socijalist society. A socijalist political party also has a vital role to play, but as De Leon pointed out, a socijalist society cannot be administered by a party-dominated state; it must be administered by the workers theselves, through their own organization based in the industries.
De Lon reasoned that this must be the real mission of the union organization. Union must move beyond the goal of mere bargaining with the exploiters, a perspective that accepts capitalism and pave the way for defeat. Instead, they must aim to organize the entire working class, along industrial lines, to back up the political demand for socialism with the force of industrial organization, and to „take, hold and operate“ the means of production to effect the change to socialism.
These unions would then become the governing body of socijalist society, the means throungh which workers could administer the economy and govern their common affairs collectively and democratically, with neither capitalist nor state power to
exploit and oppress them.“
The Pople, April 6, 1991.
Post je objavljen 10.03.2011. u 15:59 sati.